


It was the Beeping that was Doing John's Head In

by SherlocksSister



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Dirty Talk, Established Relationship, Family Feels, M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-29 19:12:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7696009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SherlocksSister/pseuds/SherlocksSister
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is fighting his way back to John, even if he doesn't realise it. John does what he can to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It was the Beeping that was Doing John's Head In

**Author's Note:**

> This was the final chapter of my fic Blood Rising and has a different feel to the chapters before it. It was suggested that it worked as a stand alone piece so I thought I would post it. The john in my head kept insisting I write more and so Blood Rising now has a new chapter set after this story. You can read it [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7537561/chapters/19007594)

Sherlock pulled his feet up so that he was lying flat on his back. His coat hung down from his shoulders like a cape or even like wings, he thought. He had often tried turning over onto his front but he had never managed it fully, although sometimes he rolled onto his left side and then back onto his right. He didn’t particularly mind though. He was comfortable enough like this and it reminded him of being on the sofa at home. Mostly, this place was just a blankness with swirls of colour; red, purple and yellow. He had often wondered what had happened to make him take so many drugs that he had trapped himself in this eternal floating chasm.

  
It wasn’t always blank though. Every now and again, Sherlock would see or, rather feel, an image float past him. Sometimes they were things he recognised from his Memory Palace but other times it was something new. Once he had seen Redbeard and rubbed his ears. That had been lovely. Another time he had seen a furled umbrella, which he had not enjoyed so much. Twice he had seen a beautiful girl’s face, but hadn’t recognised her.

  
* * *

It was the beeping that was doing John’s head in more than almost anything. Every one of these machines had their own beep and they all made that nasty tinny sound at least once a minute. Try as he would, he just couldn’t drown them out and the constant noise was gradually driving him mad. Of course, the one beep he did like was the heart rate monitor. That reassured him that, although everything else had gone to hell, Sherlock was, at the very least, still alive.

  
John laid his forehead down on the back of Sherlock’s hand, warm and soft. He spent hours each day holding and stroking that hand and had noticed that the callouses on the fingers were beginning to soften. Last week he had brought clippers in and trimmed the nails. One of the nurses had offered to do it but he preferred to do that small thing for Sherlock.

  
Glancing at the clock, he realised Emilia would be arriving in from school soon and then it would be time for Sherlock’s bed bath so he had better pull himself together. He was so tired. Maybe tonight he should go home and sleep. But what if….

  
“Hi Dad” Emilia burst into the room bringing life and joy with her. She threw down her school bag and moved to the other side of Sherlock’s hospital bed, leaned in and kissed his forehead.

  
“Hi Papa” she chirped. She brushed the grey curls back off Sherlock’s forehead and picked up his hand from on top of the bed sheets. She kissed that too before falling back into a grey plastic chair.

  
“God, I’m sooo glad that day is over” she said to neither father in particular “I swear my maths teacher is getting more stupid by the day and lets not even mention the sub we had for French. He gave out 3 detentions in 10 minutes. Oh and Katy wants to know if it’s OK for her to call over with her Dad this evening and Auntie Molly said she is going to email me the pdf of that book she was telling me about”.

  
She grinned over the bed at John who was putting together the disparate elements of this stream of consciousness. She had her hand poised over her phone, waiting for a response to give Katy and at the same time was playing with her blonde ponytail, making it swish backwards and forwards as she twisted it.

  
“What time are Greg and Katy planning on visiting?”

  
“She said they would be here about five thirty, she was going to meet her Dad at work then come over. Is that alright?”

  
“Of course, text her there. Ask Greg to bring some tea bags”. After the first week, John had brought mugs and a kettle to the hospital room, because the hospital tea was going to kill him faster than anything else. “Got much homework love?”

  
“Yeah. Business, maths, English, history. Nothing hard though, I’ll have it done in about forty five minutes” She pulled the moveable hospital tray meant for patients to eat from, lowered it and started pulling out books. John watched, enjoying the normality of it all and, not for the first time, proud of their bright, motivated daughter. He turned and smiled at Sherlock’s face to share the moment but of course got no response.

  
* * *

The noise frightened Sherlock. It was the first noise he had heard in a while and although it only lasted a moment, it made him jump. He spent ages trying to work out what had made it. It seemed very familiar and he narrowed it down to being either a frog, a bell or a bird chirping. He flexed his fingers and wriggled his toes. It felt good so he decided to do it again. Breathing in deeply he also decided to see if he could wrinkle up his nose. He could! It was so exciting he did it again. Exhausted then, he went back to floating.

  
* * *

Greg and Katy arrived at 5.45 and had duly brought the tea bags. They all had a cup and while the two cousins chatted animatedly about school, eyeliner and YouTube vlogs, Greg and John went to get something to eat.

  
“Well, what did the doctors say today?” Greg asked his brother-in-law.

  
“Still no change. They are talking about maybe moving him to a different part of the hospital, a less high support unit”.

  
“That’s good isn’t it?”

  
“Not really. It means they think he is going to stay like this for a long time” John rubbed a hand over his face “maybe a very long time”.

  
“I think they underestimate the man. Haven’t a clue who they are dealing with”.

  
“Any progress in finding the driver?” Greg shook his head. Three weeks after Sherlock had been knocked down by a car that had come up onto the path and hit him at speed, straight on, causing Sherlock to smash his head on the kerb, all the leads had gone cold. There was no doubt it had been done deliberately but there had been nothing concrete to work on.

  
“Well, keep trying” was all John could find the energy to say. He threw his picked at sandwich in the bin and they went back to the girls.

  
In the room, Emilia was reading her set Shakespearean text aloud to her Papa:-

  
“And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,  
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,  
I am determined to prove a villain  
And hate the idle pleasures of these days”

She sighed slightly, screwing up her nose “Papa would be able to explain to me what on earth that’s supposed to mean” she said to the room in general.  
“Keep reading it love. Put in some wrong bits, he might wake up just to correct you” John encouraged.

  
* * *

A bird, Sherlock decided the next time he heard it. This time, the noise lasted longer and was high pitched, rising and falling like music. There was a new sound too this time. A deeper, resonant sound that Sherlock really liked but it was muffled like he was under water. That thought made Sherlock panicky. Maybe he was underwater? Maybe he needed to breathe? He began to grasp for breath, nothing coming. Now he began to really worry and decided to try and get to the surface. He really wanted to hear that new sound again.

  
* * *

Greg brought Emilia and Katy home. John wanted a few minutes by himself with Sherlock and Mycroft would have her dropped back to the flat to him. He had decided he really did need to get some sleep, in a bed. Their bed.

  
The idea of it made John’s heart clench. He leaned over and stroked Sherlock’s alabaster face, the usual lines softened by the lack of consciousness. He touched his cheek to Sherlock’s cheek and kissed his forehead, each eyelid, end of his nose and each cheekbone before ending with a long kiss on the lips.

  
“Talk to him” the neurologist had urged “touch him, play music and bring him things he likes to smell. It can all help”.

  
John stroked his hand lightly down Sherlock’s forearm, feeling the beginnings of the muscle wastage in its thinness. Reaching up again, he brushed his fingertips slowly through Sherlock’s hair, front to back, pulling gently on a curl and letting it spring back. They were mostly grey now, having stayed black for considerably longer than John had thought reasonable. Even now, there were still a few black hairs here and there.

  
“Come back to me Sherlock. I’m not done with you yet, my darling. So many things still to do together. I miss you. I miss you in the kitchen filling the fridge with biohazards, I miss you shouting at the TV, I miss you playing the violin and I miss you sulking on the sofa. I miss you in our bed” John climbed up and perched on the edge of the narrow hospital bed, lying on his side. He wrapped one arm lightly around Sherlock’s waist and propped his head up on the other hand, getting as close to Sherlock’s ear as he could.

  
“I need you Sherlock. You know how I can get. I need to see you under me, spread out on the bed. Oh my beautiful, I need to see you with your hard dick in your hand, stroking it slowly while you gaze up at me, other hand thrown behind your head. You are such a tease when you’re like that Sherlock, all languid and pliable. I need to be able to lick you, lick you from the back of your ear, down, down past your nipples, down past your cock and lick that glorious arse of yours, fill you with my tongue until you squirm and pant. I need to lie on top of you, holding your hands above your head, still and dazed until I slowly, slowly press my cock into yours and move backwards and forwards, that delicious slide, while I bite and lick your neck, shoulders and collar bone”.

  
John hesitated. He wasn’t sure if this was ok, whether he was crossing a line. It was only talking after all, he decided, and he felt the need to try, to do anything that he could.

  
* * *

Sherlock was desperately trying to move upwards, towards the surface, to breathe. The more he tried, the thicker the nothingness around him became, morphing from air, to water to treacle. It was exhausting. He was panting, recovering from his last effort when the rumbling noise came again, louder this time, closer. Sherlock listened intently trying to work out what the sound was. He surged up again, determined, and followed the sound.

  
* * *

  
“Oh Sherlock, my extraordinary love, I need to keep those arms pinned down again, to spread your knees with mine and lay between you. I love to just look at you when you are like that, like I could do anything at all with you and you would let me. Do you know what I would most want to do, hmm?” John kissed Sherlock gently on the cheek “I would just ease myself onto your heavenly dick, slowly, slowly and then pull back up again and do it all over again. Time and time again until you begged me to let you go all the way in. You do beg me, my sweet, don’t you?”

  
* * *

  
He was getting closer! He knew that sound. It was a voice, a familiar voice. Sherlock kept kicking up, reaching out. He became aware of more sounds now, beeping and the soft, comfortable nothingness was being replaced by a brightness, a harshness that made his eyes hurt. Something was urging him on, to keep trying though, even though his body was beginning to ache with the effort. He took another deep breath.

  
* * *

  
“Then when you had finally given in and begged, I would sink all the way down, take in every inch of you, wrap you up in myself and truly have you. I would move slowly at first and then speed up, bringing you closer and closer, never taking my eyes off you as you arch up and press into me”.

  
* * *

  
Sherlock was shocked when he finally identified the noise. Couldn’t understand why he hadn’t always known. It was a voice, a man’s voice and it was talking to him, a voice saying it needed him. Its ok, Sherlock thought, I’m coming, just hold on, wait for me.

  
“John” Sherlock whispered, his voice cracked, throat sore.

  
John, thought he had imagined it, lost in his reverie, the images he had created.

  
“Sherlock?” He waited and watched Sherlock’s face for any signs of movement. Nothing. He buried his head into the nape of Sherlock’s neck. He had imagined it.

  
“John”

  
His head sprang up. This time Sherlock’s eyelids fluttered and opened.


End file.
